


When the World is Made Right

by beerecordings



Category: jacksepticeye egos - Fandom
Genre: And then finding him, Don't copy to another site, Grief/Mourning, Happy Ending, Missing Henrik, My boys all back together again
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-07
Updated: 2019-08-07
Packaged: 2020-08-11 13:13:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,491
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20154166
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beerecordings/pseuds/beerecordings
Summary: Chase misses him.They all miss him.And it's so quiet, the way that it hurts.This doesn't even feel real.Until at last he comes home."I missed you!" screams Chase, and then, at last, he is buried in his brother's arms.





	When the World is Made Right

The world’s gone dull at the edges.

He’s sitting on the wide sill of his window, resting his head against the wall and breathing deep the cool air of early winter, because the sharp stinging of the frost is the only thing that feels real anymore, and none of it has meaning. Far away, the sun is diluting down, down into darkness, draping everything in an evening moment of nightly silence. He’d say it’s like the world, too, is grieving, but then again, when has the world ever given a fuck?

His knees ache. His head hurts. He’s hungry. But pain isn’t even pain anymore and all he wants is to see his friends.

He hears the door open downstairs and sits up, stiffly untucking himself from the windowsill and rubbing at his weary eyes.

“Face it, Jackie,” Marv is shouting. Chase sighs. Doesn’t sound like good news. “If he’s not there, or back near the apartments, or at the old place, then he’s not fucking anywhere. Not anywhere we can find him.”

“Oh, so we’re giving up on him? Is that what you want me to do, Marvin?”

They’re really fighting. Chase recognizes this as abnormal. In fact, he doesn’t think he’s ever heard the pair of them fight over anything bigger than the best place to get a milkshake at three in the morning. It doesn’t surprise him, though. Nothing surprises him anymore.

“I need you to be realistic because this blind optimism is dangerous, and anyway if you don’t rest your leg, it’s not going to heal, and I know you haven’t been taking care of yourself at all on account of you being a moron, and you haven’t even been to see Jack – ”

“Well, what’s the point? I don’t – ”

“Oh, ‘what’s the point?’ Don’t give me bullshit, Jackie, you and I both know – ”

“Ever since he disappeared, you’re acting like you don’t feel anything – ”

“You’re the one who’s refusing to feel anything. You can’t bear the thought of having failed them.”

“Because I’m supposed to be the hero and I can’t fucking – !”

“Guys,” Chase interrupts.

They turn to see him sitting on the stairs, his chin in his hands and his expression blank.

“Hi, Chase,” sighs Marvin, stepping closer.

“Hey, bud,” says Jackie cheerily. “Sorry! We shouldn’t be fighting! We just – ”

“No sign of him?” asks Chase, unsmiling.

Marvin and Jackie exchange looks. The answer sits, dead on arrival, in the cold air of the half-abandoned house.

Too quiet with two brothers gone.

“Sorry, Chase,” Jackie whispers, and the aura of light that always seems to hover around him softens and fails.

“Not your fault,” Chase whispers back.

He decided a couple days ago that this probably isn’t a dream, but he knows something went wrong. Maybe he’s dead and this is purgatory or hell or whatever nightmare the afterlife consists of, or maybe Anti’s kidnapped him instead of his friend and he’s living some sort of illusion to keep him quiet. Alternatively, he’s getting increasingly fond of the theory that he’s somehow gotten trapped in the wrong timeline or even universe, and nothing’s going to look right or feel right or be right til he finds his way home.

“You should listen to Marv, though,” he adds, sighing and sinking down on the stairs, draping his hands over his knees. “It’s not healthy for you to be pretending everything’s okay if it’s not, Jackie. And maybe… maybe we do need to be realistic, about him being gone.”

Jackie’s face falls. He stares at Chase like he’s announced that he has stage four cancer.

“Marv, you’re not off the hook either,” he continues, before anyone can cut him off. “Stop acting tough, okay? We’re all collapsing here. Let’s just… maybe we should just…”

Neither Marvin nor Jackie can meet his eyes. The failure of their twin power is just one more way the universe has messed this story up. But real or not, here they seem to be, a remnant of what was, a trio of brothers with empty hands and loss in the lines of their faces.

“He’s gone,” Chase finishes weakly. “He’s gone.”

Reality’s wrong. Reality’s wrong. The world is gone and what remains is grief, and rage, and confusion, and hurt, and above all else, a great and overwhelming sense that none of this, none of this, none of this makes sense.

That night is the first night of his life that Chase hears Jackie cry. Marvin’s never looked weaker, collapsing like a melting ice sculpture, his face white with shock and his power sinking out of him and making things float in the living room. Both come to comfort him, touching his shoulder and murmuring his name, but they only find him cold, sitting stiffly on his windowsill, quiet and hopeless and lost.

_Universe got it wrong, Chase decides, alone. Universe got everything wrong._

Grief tastes like ash.

On May 1, 2018, Chase wakes up to crashing downstairs. He jolts awake and rubs the sleep from his eyes, gritting out some half-hearted grumbling for his brothers’ endless ability to create a disaster too early in the morning.

He glances at his clock. Four thirteen AM. Fuck!

“What are you guys doing?” he shouts, setting his socked feet on his carpet.

He hears the soft knock knock knock of Jameson trying to get someone to look at him, another crash and a yelp from either Marvin or Jackie – no, that’s a Jackie yelp, he adds a little “owwwww” after it – can’t they be quiet for ten minutes so he can sleep? Somebody sighs loud enough he can hear it through the vent, Marvin murmurs something dark and worried, Jackie might be crying, a frail voice goes “gottverdammt!” and then fades off into a groan –

Chase is on his feet.

He’s on his feet, gasping, winded, stunned, and the world has gone so bright that humanity might be about to meet the same end as the dinosaurs, but nothing happens. He just stands there gaping like an idiot, breathing too fast.

And then he runs.

Slams his door against the wall, sprints down the hallway, and takes the staircase in two huge leaps. He runs. Crashes right into JJ.

His little brother is sarcastic enough to sign a pointed “hey!” as Chase staggers back to his feet.

“Why are you crying?” adds Jameson, offering an expression of exaggerated shock. “Chase?”

But Chase is already moving past him.

For the first time in nine months, there is someone in Henrik’s room.

There are bandages and iodine and bloodstains and brothers. There are blankets and worried words, stitching thread drawn through needles and soft hands to thread it. There is the good doctor.

He has dreamed of finding him a hundred times, a thousand times, a million times.

But this does not feel like a dream.

This is the first thing that’s been real in nine months.

He opens the door.

“Schneep?” he says.

Jackie and Marvin part, stepping back with gauze and antiseptic in hand. They’re both bruised and exhausted, but they smile, proud and whole, side by side in the summertime. Jackie’s power makes the lights bright. Marvin’s makes the trees bloom outside the open window. A warm breeze brushes through their hair.

“Chase Brody,” says Henrik.

His hands are scarred and shy. They reach ever-so-slightly towards him.

“Schneep!” Chase screams, and then he is holding him, he is holding him, he is holding him, clutching tight to his friend’s emaciated ribs, squeezing at his sharp shoulders, his face buried against his collarbone, gripping at his overgrown hair, and even with the smell of blood coating his body, still there is something that is Henrik’s and Henrik’s alone, and Chase is shaking, shaking, weeping, holding him, holding him, holding him.

“I thought I’d never see you again!”

“I thought I’d never see you again!”

“I missed you!”

“I missed you, I missed you, so fucking much, I missed you, old friend, old friend.”

“Don’t go away again. How did I live without you? You’re my best friend. Don’t go away.”

“I won’t go, I’ll never go away again.”

“I love you.”

“I love you!”

“Henrik! Schneep! The world is goddamn right!”

Chase kisses him, soundly, on the side of his head, and Henrik laughs until he can’t breathe, laughs and cries and shoves him away, playful, delighted, recovering, desperate, full and exhausted, whole and shattered, scarred and shaking but here, here, here. And the world is bright and right and perfect, if only if for a single moment, suspended forever in Henrik’s arms. Jackie and Marvin chat cheerfully at the doorway, their eyes much bluer than should be possible, and Jameson wanders in too, confused but no longer afraid, and smiles as he understands that a pain and a grief that has long haunted his family has finally been set right.

“The world is right,” whispers Chase, warm in Henrik’s arms. “The world is right.”

**Author's Note:**

> Just a short piece but I'm so fond of it. Originally written on tumblr. You can find me at the same username. Thanks for reading!


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